Amal and Pro-Syrian Flags may soon leave Hamra

Found in the Sunni quarter of Beirut, the bustling street of Hamra is legendary. Despite its location, the street has drawn people from all segments of Lebanon’s fracticious society – old and young, Christian and Muslim, rich and poor.

This inclusion, in addition to its proximity to the American University of Beirut allowed Harma to host preeminent Arab writers in its cafes, lure established and aspiring playwrights to its theaters, and fill its sidewalks with merchants, tourists and curious passers-by. Through Lebanon’s brutal civil war, Hamra’s troubles inspired poetry and today it remains relevant in the country’s latest pop songs.

When West Beirut (including the Hamra district) fell under Hezbollah’s occupation this past May, the sense of loss and outrage was palpable throughout Lebanon. Yet while the loss of this cultural site affected many, it also signaled to the Sunni-majority residents in particular their growing vulnerability in an increasingly Shia-dominated society.

Even though the Hezbollah army has come and gone, scars remain. The spring incursion has added fuel to the Shia-Sunni fire, leading to outbursts of violence in North Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

While Beirut itself is struggling to conduct “business as usual” for the tourist season, a stroll down Hamra reveals all is not well. Where advertisements for jewelry, clothing and local cuisine compete with one another on the crowded street, they are now joined by the ominous presence of Amal and Syrian Social Nationalist flags.

These banners have stained Hamra since May and are obviously intended to play upon feelings of humiliation and defeat experienced by residents. But because of the street’s symbolism, they also send formidable messages to the Lebanese as a whole. And while it is important to note that no Hezbollah flags are still nowhere to be found, it is doubtful that their allies could indulge in this anatagonistic, spiteful behavior without at least tacit consent.

This outrage has not been passively endured. A number of contained violent episodes have taken place over the past few weeks as young men from the neighborhood clash with Pro-Amal/Syrian Social Nationalist groups.

Just this week, however, a silver lining has emerged. The country’s Internal Security Forces have teamed up with the army to address the banner issue. Admittedly, this small step will do little to assuage the deep divides – many old, many new – that exist between Hezbollah and its supporters and the rest of the country, but it is hard to imagine future progress without it.

YAARGH!

Piracy is alive and well in the Middle East

And I don’t mean the intellectual property type.

No, no… I’m talking about the saber-rattling, rope-swinging, “aye, aye cap’n” kind.

Granted, the Barbary pirates were already an anachronism when they reigned over the Mediterrean in the 18th and 19th centuries. And while the U.S. Marine’s song commemorates them in the line, “the shores of Tripoli,” many would be surprised to learn that the Barbary legacy lives on throughout North Africa and the Gulf.

Here’s a quick rundown of the latest pirate news for all you land-lovers:

Sept 4: Swashbucklers hijack a French ship off the Somali coast. A few hours later, they manage to seize an Egyptian one as well. They are holding French captives from the first assault for a $1 million ransom.

Sept 4: The Yemeni government announces it will host a regional center to combat piracy in October. They are expecting more than 20 countries to cooperate.

Sept 2: Both the European Union and the United Nations announce plans to release additional patrolling ships to protect trade in the region.
Sept 2: Pirates off the Horn of Africa capture four ships and hold them for $9.2 million.

Aug 30: A Malaysian tanker loaded with "chemicals that could endanger the environment" is overtaken by pirates.

Aug 29: Somali buccaneers finally release a fishing ship and its crew after seven (!) months of captivity.

Aug 27: Four mateys took hold of a $40 million dollar yacht in the Mediterranean and seized $200,000 worth of booty.
Aug 25: Well blow me down! Jack Nicholson, Giorgio Armani and Sean 'Diddy' Combs have a close encounter of the sea dog kind while sailng in the Mediterranean.
Aug 24: A group of scallywags were foiled (ppheeew!) in an attempt to hijack a Japanese-operated ship and then a Liberian cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.

Aug 9: 20 sailors set out on a remake of an ancient Phoenician vessel to retrace Herodotus’ historic circumnavigation of Africa. Their main concern in undertaking this year-long voyage? Pirates!

And the list goes on and on. France’s Foreign Ministry reports that an astounding 260 acts of piracy were recorded last year. 30 of these took place off the coast of Somalia alone.

Jokes aside, the flourishing of piracy is a testament to the weak rule of law that plagues the entire region. The success of pirating in the Arab world and Africa has serious implications for trade, economic development, security and even terrorism - thereby reinforcing the need for comprehensive change at the government and societal level.

What Actually Happened: Courageous or Caught?

Written by Jessica

8.25.08

I began this morning the way I always do -- skimming through the hundreds of articles that piled up on my Google Reader since Friday. As usual, I optimistically assumed I'd take the time to empty out the less interesting ones over the weekend, and as usual, I came to work on Monday morning and had over 500 headlines from various newspapers around the world waiting for me. Being a diligent person (and having not had a cup of coffee that morning to get my brain working), I set down to read at least every single headline. Even the ones in French and Spanish, a strain on my single semester of French for Reading Comprehension and my high-school Spanish classes more years ago than I care to admit.

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One of the Spanish articles caught my attention. El Pais was relating a fascinating, short little story of a teenage girl who walked into a police station, wearing a suicide vest, and chose to turn herself in rather than explode the vest. The report held me for a number of reasons. I am always interested in the situation of women and children across the world, and have a particular interest in how teenage girls deal with the stresses of the world around them.

As the article in El Pais commented, men, women and boys have been suicide bombers, but young girls are (thankfully) rare. And even rarer than teenaged girl suicide bombers are any suicide bombers who have the courage to turn themselves in rather than commit homicide. This girl's courage and conviction immediately interested me. How many teenagers, struggling with the questions of who they are and who they want to be, could overcome whatever pressures were on them that lead them to don the vest? How many would be able, in the last moment, to put life (their own, their potential victims') above death?

I put the article in our Digging Deeper section, so our readers with some knowledge of Spanish could see and think about the same report. But then I continued slogging through my Reader, I found that USA Today had picked up the same story ... or rather, they were reporting the same event. The two stories were drastically different.

USA Today's headline declared: Iraqi teen girl caught with bomb vest! That short story (which, like the El Pais piece, was credited to the Associated Press), said that the girl had been caught, rather than turned herself in. The stunning courage and determination to take control of her own life that had so interested me in the piece by El Pais was gone. Now, the story was the success of the Iraqi police in capturing a potential bomber.

I admit my biases here -- I wanted the El Pais story to be true. I wanted the girl to have made a choice, to have agency, as my professors used to say. What I want, however, is sadly irrelevant. The question is what actually happened ... and that question looks unanswerable.

Being versed in the detailed-oriented (some might say anal retentive) research methods of the humanities, I determined to do a survey of the coverage of this story, to see who was reporting it as the girl's choice and who was reporting it as a triumph of the Iraqi police. Here are the headlines I found. They are in no particular order, and many of them are the same article -- but the point is more who is reporting what than if the articles are from the same source.

Gulfnews: Girl surrenders before carrying out suicide bombing in Iraq

UK Times Online: Girl suicide bomber, 13, hands herself in to Iraqi police

Sydney Morning Herald: Iraq parades teen girl 'bomber'

Reuters UK: Iraqi girl aborts suicide bombing

Washington Post: Iraqi girl aborts suicide bombing

Lebanon Daily Star: Iraqi authorities show off would-be female suicide bomber to media (this article highlights the disparity in other accounts)

International Herald Tribune: Iraqi teen girl caught with bomb vest

Associated Press: Iraq girl caught with bomb vest interrogated

The Press Association: Iraq girl, 15, caught in bomb vest (her age changed here)

NDTV Arabia had an entirely different take on the story -- in their version, Suicide bomber surrenders in Iraq, an older woman turned herself in and that woman then lead police to the 13 year old girl mentioned in El Pais.

Agence France Presse had a story (Iraq police detain teenage girl with explosives vest) that I can only assume is the same, since it involves a teenage girl, an explosive vest and the city of Baquba in the same time frame, but the details about the girl's mother aren't in the other stories I'd read.

A search in Google News found a few more articles covering this, which I didn't list for brevity's sake (I know, too late). But the truth of the story remains unfortunately elusive. I could, if I wish, decide that I trust the Washington Post to give me the most accurate retelling of the event, and stick with their version. Unfortunately, I'm a bit too cynical for that. Media literacy has been drummed into me.

The only real conclusion we can draw from all of this is that no matter how informed you try to be, no matter how many papers you read, there's still a wide gap between what happened and what we get from the media. This is not to say that all of those reporters are misrepresenting the truth -- it's possible, of course, that one or two might be, but my guess is that all are reporting the facts they were given them, as best they understand them. But one man's understanding differs from another, and when all the reporters have to go on is the words of the Iraqi police, a grainy video and a few eyewitness reports ... no wonder the news differs. For myself, given no better way to determine what happened, I choose to believe that the girl took control of her life at this critical juncture, and choose a future for herself and her potential victims.